


Never stopping for you

by pigalle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captain America: The First Avenger, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Heaven, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Reuniting, Suicide, a somewhat happy ending at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 20:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5680048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigalle/pseuds/pigalle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a beautiful day when it happens, and the world looses a member they never would have thought. It's a beautiful day, and a man never thought so looses his spirits.</p><p>And then it happens again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never stopping for you

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry?

It’s actually a beautiful day when it happens, the sun is shining and everyone is happy from the newest victory. Especially Bucky is, and it’s making everyone else in an extra good mood. He just has that effect on them, always has had.

Their mail is handed out, and Bucky retreats to his tent to read his. It’s from Steve, always is from Steve, and you never know what has been transferred onto the paper from his dirty mouthed brain. Bucky loves him for that.

But then he looks closer at the envelope. It’s not like the ones Steve usually sends him, this is a lot fancier. He doesn’t think much of it. Until he sees what’s inside.

It starts out very formal, going through some legal things Bucky doesn’t understand what it has any business being sent to him. Then he realises that it has something to do with a hospital and gets scared. Steve is always in and out of them, more so when Bucky isn’t there to look after him.

His eyes halt when they reaches the next words.

_ We regret to inform you that Steven G. Rogers passed away late June 21st, 1943. _

The words barely registers in his brain. Because surely he can’t just have read that? He reads the words over again, takes a deep breath and repeats.

They don’t change.

He briefly checks the rest of the letter, noting something about “asthma attack” and “couldn’t do anything”.

His body feels numb, like his heart is feeling to much pain to allow his body to feel anything. It can’t be true.

But, the letter isn’t false, has all the sigils and name signings it has to.

But it still feels so unreal.

Logically, Bucky has always known that Steve would die before him, but he didn’t think it would happen like this. Not when he was away helping fighting the nazis and not able to see Steve one last time.

Not able to tell him how much he loves him one last time.

It’s first when a sob rake through his body that it really sinks in that Steve is dead. He won’t get to see him again, won’t get to hold him, kiss him, love him.

And it’s tearing him apart.

~~~~~

At the sound of the gunshot the whole camp is sent into a frenzy trying to locate the attack. It takes them more than an hour before the can for sure say that there is no attack looming over them. Wherever the gunshot was from, it’s inside the camp. They then spend another hour trying to locate where the gun went off, and _  why the hell a gun went off inside camp _ !

The man eventually finding the cause might have seen a lot of death and blood under the duration of the war, but the sight still shocks him. It’s inside one of the tents, he’d just gone to check why the man wasn’t helping them search since he’d seen his legs from the open tent flap. He hadn’t anticipated the blood splattered all over the fabric of the tent. And what’s worse is the man lying inside, blood in his hair and a gun in his right hand. After a minute or so recognition dawns on him and he realises that the man lying there is Bucky, the sunshine of the camp, the man with a smile on his lips all the time. And the gun in his hand and the wound on his head can only mean one thing.

He just stands there — too shocked to do anything — until Colonel Phillips approaches him, yelling at him to not just stand there. He turns his face to look at him, words failing him, and something must have shown on his face.

There is a flurry of activity after that, and soon the whole camp is aware of the news. No good weather, no shining sun in the world can stop the eerie stillness and overall grief that settles over them after that. But the sun shines on, like the world didn’t lose a precious member that day.

Not even the USO tour with its cheeriness can change it the next day.

~~~~~

Steve sits back after the show, sketches in his pad. The gloominess had been so different from his previously cheering audiences, and it had made him feel like it was his fault somehow. He didn’t know what to do, had felt completely useless.

“It’s not your fault,” Peggy says when she comes up to him and sees his expression. “The 107th lost a precious member yesterday.”

“107th?” That was where Bucky said he’d be. After all this time he longs to see Bucky again, aches even. He didn’t think he’d miss him this much.

He gets up, asks the first man he sees if he knows where he can find Sergeant James Barnes. The man just looks at him, and stalks off after a moment. Confused Steve asks a few more men, but gets the same response. When he sees Colonel Phillips he sees his chance and walks up to him.

“Colonel Phillips, do you know where I can find Sergeant James Barnes?”

The Colonel frowns at him and then says, “James Barnes? No, he’s dead, committed suicide yesterday.”

The words don’t sink in at first, because he can’t understand them. Suicide? He’s just asking for Bucky, what does this has to do with him?

Bu then the words hits home, and it takes all in him to keep from falling to the ground and sob. Because Bucky is dead.

His precious Bucky, dead. How is he to see him again now, to hold him, kiss him, love him? Surely it can’t be true.

But it is.

Colonel leads him away to a tent standing a bit off from the others and shows him inside. There on a cot lays a body covered in a white sheet. Next to it, on a small chair, rests a letter. Steve lifts it up and sits down on the chair. His eyes scan over the paper, and when he’s done he just only manages not to crumble it to pieces.

He is not dead, actually, he is very much alive. After nothing else had worked, he’d been taken somewhere else and given what he later was told was an experimental serum. It had worked like it was supposed to, and it had saved him. So how could they let a letter out that he was dead? How could they do that when his Bucky was now dead?

Steve drops the letter to the ground and reaches his hands out to the sheet. He wants confirmation that it really is Bucky, and that he really is dead, but… He doesn’t exactly want to see Bucky’s lifeless body, because he’s not sure how he’ll get through that.

But in the end he grips the end of the sheet and lifts it away slightly.

The sight before him is hard to take in, hard to realise that this blood covered and still body is his Bucky. His so very dead Bucky.

He feels the tears running down his cheeks, but as he looks down at Bucky he can’t bother to wipe them away.

~~~~~

Bucky wanders around the bright place frantically. He has yet to find someone to help him, someone to tell him where he can find Steve. He’d thought heaven meant getting reunited with your loved ones, not for this feeling of panic.

He wants to see Steve.

He’s gripped at the shoulder, stopped from running straight into a person. Said person looks at him, and only if he squints can Bucky look past the brightness to actually see them doing it.

“How can I help you?” they say, in a voice too calm for Bucky’s frantic need to find Steve.

“I’m trying to find Steve Rogers,” he says, vinches at how desperate he sounds.

The person seem to think for a moment then says, “Steve Rogers? No, he’s alive, still down on earth.”

He twist the words around in his brain, tries to understand them. It doesn’t make sense, Steve died, didn’t he?

“But he died,” Bucky whimpers at no one in particular.

But bright-person answers him, “No, no, he’s still alive. There was a misunderstanding, but Steve Rogers is still alive.” Then they walk away, leaving Bucky alone.

Bucky slumps down on the ground, feeling lost. He thought Steve died. He’d wanted to see him again, to hold him, kiss him, love him. He’d thought he’d get that.

He buries his face in his hands, doesn’t bother stopping the sobs that escapes past his lips. He wants to die, wants to laugh at the irony of wanting to die when already dead. But it hurts.

He’d done it to reunite with Steve, because he didn’t want to live without him. But now he’ll have to be dead without him, while Steve must live on without Bucky. It feels like someone is playing a twisted joke on them, like someone wants to see them suffer. And well, they’ve succeeded. Bucky feels terrible.

~~~~~

 

~~~~~

Bucky never leaves his spot in what he realises must be some sort of reception area. Everyone who comes there are either bright-persons or people looking lost, like they don’t know what’s going on or where they are. After a while — after most of the pain has stilled — Bucky figures he can just stay there ‘til Steve comes. Because he must at some point.

(He doesn’t even want to think about the possibility that Steve might never show up.)

It’s well enough that time seem to have no concept up here. At the same time it feels like it’s gone ages it’s like it’s only been minutes.

In the beginning Bucky looks up hopefully whenever someone new arrives. But when no Steve comes he stops, just sits there staring down at his lap.

He’s run over several times by people not looking where they’re going. He doesn’t really mind, it keeps reminding him where he is and that he’s waiting for Steve. But Steve never seem to come.

~~~~~

When the blond man runs into the dark haired man slumped on the floor he looks down to apologise. His mouth opens to say the words, but then they only stay open when the dark haired man looks up at him. At first they only stare at each other, but then the blond man slumps down — as if the muscles in his body stops working — into the lap of the dark haired man. A grin slowly settles on his face and he moves his arms around the blond man’s body. The same grin slowly creeps unto the other man, until they are looking at each other with their faces screwed up in one of the happiest looks ever seen. They’re alone in their own world; everything around them slowly melts away as their lips meet in a kiss that anyone can see has been waiting to happen for far too long.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://jennypigalle.tumblr.com)


End file.
